Sports Beat: Hit me right in the chest’

Saturday

The Bay County High School graduating class of 1959 doesn’t really need much of a reason to gather for a reunion.

The Bay County High School graduating class of 1959 doesn’t really need much of a reason to gather for a reunion.

Like, hey it’s Tuesday. Let’s get together.

In addition to meeting every five years, it decided a couple of years ago to have a birthday bash in Panama City Beach when many of them turned 70.

The next planned reunion is for sometime next year, but that didn’t prevent class members James Berry and Charles Owens from recently doing a little celebrating on their own. On an even larger scale.

Berry was among a group of eight inducted into the Southern Mississippi M-Club Hall of Fame Oct. 4 in Hattiesburg, Miss. Owens preceded that with a 50-year reunion among the surviving members of Memphis State’s undefeated 1963 football team that was honored on Sept. 7 prior to the university’s season opener.

Berry and Owens not only go back to their days at Bay, but their roots entwined while growing up in St. Andrews, playing youth baseball and attending Jinks Junior High. They also extended their friendship into some competition in college football.

Berry was a safety on Mississippi Southern’s 1962 UPI national championship team at a level that roughly corresponds to Division I-AA prior to the FBS and FCS nonsense of recent years. He also played quarterback in college at a time when there weren’t separate units for offense and defense, but first string and second string. Players often saw duty on both sides of the ball.

Let him tell the story of meeting up with Owens.

“Memphis State and Southern Miss was the biggest game on both of our schedules. They were a university and we were a college in a different classification. We lost 8-6 in 1962, the year we won” the UPI championship.

Memphis State won 28-7 to open the 1963 season.

“It was a screen pass, a middle screen. “He (Owens) was playing noseguard, intercepted it and ran it back to about the 5-yard-line.”

Owens chuckled at the memory.

“James was a good football player, a good solid quarterback,” he said. “I tell you what, it was unbelievable the language put out when he saw who had the football. We had kind of a camouflage defense and had the right call on. I stepped back instead of rushing. He didn’t look and threw that middle screen and hit me right in the chest.”

Memphis tied SEC powerhouse Mississippi, ranked No. 3 in the nation, 0-0 the next week, then went on to eight consecutive victories against the likes of sharpshooting Tulsa quarterback Jerry Rhome and receiver Howard Twilley and South Carolina, which featured quarterback Dan Reeves.

Memphis State reunions also give Owens a chance to see Doug Woodlief of Marianna, one of a number of players recruited by backfield coach John Cobb, who later would coach Bay High School to the lone state football championship by a Bay County school.

Another link to Bay was Memphis freshman quarterback Don Deaton, who also eventually became the head coach of the Tornadoes.

“We would hammer on him during the week we he was our scout team quarterback,” said Owens, who played at 6-foot-4, 228 pounds and also started on the offensive line next to Harry Schuh, a future NFL Pro Bowler.

Berry remained at what became Southern Mississippi for a decade as an assistant coach following his playing days. Other games that stand out vividly were against Florida State. In 1962, Berry recalled, he made two key plays at safety to preserve a victory in Tallahassee, and the schools played to a 0-0 tie the following season.

“They had (quarterback) Steve Tensi and (receiver) Fred Biletnikoff,” Berry noted. “I intercepted two passes in that ballgame and on a kickoff was the safety man and they broke it and I made the tackle on about the 40-yard line.”

Following his coaching stint Berry put his business administration degree to use in the hotel business in Georgia as well as in Panama City and Fort Walton Beach.

Now 72, he is retired and back living in Hattiesburg. When he’s not planning on returning here for another reunion.

“Next year is our 55-year reunion,” he said. “If not that, we’ll find some other reason to have one.”

Owens, also 72, lives across the river from Memphis in Hughes, Ark. He said he recently retired from the farm chemical business, and isn’t ruling out relocating in Panama City permanently.

“I come down three or four times a year anyway,” he said.

That just might be the biggest reunion of all.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.